As we come off the holiday where we’re supposed to give thanks for things, let us be thankful for two cars that prove the future may not suck for enthusiasts after all.

Here are the folks from Carfection with a test of the two current reigning hybrid supercars that don’t cost north of a million dollars: the BMW i8 and the Acura NSX. These two are as similar as they are different: while both use a mid-engine architecture, lightweight materials, hybrid powertrains and experimental technologies, the BMW packs a tiny 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbo motor while the NSX comes to the fight with a beefy twin-turbo V6. It has 573 horsepower, while the i8 has 357 horses. As Alex Goy says, they go about the same job very differently.

So you might expect the NSX, which was recently named Road & Track’sPerformance Car of the Year, to be faster and a better handler. And you would be right! The i8 has proven to be an interesting experiment and comes with wonderful concept car looks, but on the track it’s clearly outclassed by the new NSX, which is turning out to be a better machine than anyone expected.

But either way, these two machines may be examples of good things yet to come. As Alex says, neither one drives for you, neither one will “molly coddle” you. They just use modern technology to excite us in new ways.

Beats the hell out of riding around in autonomous Google panda-pods in my book.